The Billionaire's Matchmaker(42)

“Actually, Sue is having everyone over,” he replied, referring to his older sister. “But I’ve got to fly to San Diego to finalize some details at the new facility, so I won’t make it. I’m taking Mom out for dinner when I get back, but I wanted to send a bouquet to the house.”

The new facility. His dream job. The reminder of what awaited him on the West Coast caused her tone to be sharper than she intended when she said, “You could have ordered flowers over the phone.”

“I could have.” He did look up now. His tone was full of challenge when he asked, “Do you have a problem seeing me, Mia?”

“No. Why would I have a problem seeing you?” Okay, that came out defensive.

He straightened and stepped closer, leaving only the stainless steel prep table to separate them. Even with flowers perfuming the air, she caught a hint of the aftershave she’d given him for his birthday the previous fall. He was dressed in wrinkled cargo shorts and a faded T-shirt that sported the name of his college alma mater. It was just her bad luck that her mind decided to replay a scene from the previous summer when she’d helped him out of that very shirt.

They’d gotten caught in a downpour, after which they’d stumbled into her house, laughing and drenched. Gid had taken one look at the thin fabric plastered against her body and sobered. He’d traced a circle around one breast, causing its already erect nipple to tighten further through her sports bra. That was all it had taken to have Mia yanking off his sodden tee in desperation. They hadn’t made it to the bedroom—or even to the couch half a dozen steps away in her living room. In his urgency, Gid had made love to her against the wall in the tiny foyer.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he’d told her afterward as the breath sawed from his lungs. “Even when we’re old and gray, Mia, I won’t have had my fill.”

They were words that should have made her happy but instead had left her unnerved. Too many people in her life had made promises they could not keep. In a way, such words often had signaled the beginning of the end.

Mia crossed her arms as she shifted her weight to one hip. She couldn’t bear to open herself up to the kind of pain she knew firsthand abandonment caused. It hadn’t been wise to become so involved with Gid. She’d let things with him grow too serious and go on for too long. Ultimately, however, she deemed it wiser to reject than to wait around to be rejected.

Not that walking away from Gideon had been easy. But it had been necessary. Besides, he was better off without her. He deserved someone who was emotionally healthy and whole. Someone who wasn’t afraid to love him back.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.

She shook her head in denial. “I’ve been busy.”

“That’s a handy excuse, Mia. Not to mention an overused one.”

“It also happens to be true.”

His eyes narrowed and she braced for a battle of words, mentally lining up her arguments. Instead, Gideon merely shrugged.

“Whatever.”

Nothing got Mia’s back up quicker than that one, three-syllable word. Whatever said, I don’t care. It said, what you have to say doesn’t matter to me. Extrapolated, it meant, you don’t matter to me.

If she’d been thinking straight, she would have realized that her strong reaction to the word was exactly why Gid used it. He wanted to get a rise out of her. He wanted her to fight back. He wanted to pull out the volatile emotions that she tried to keep under lock and key. But seeing red blotted out the obvious.

“Are you calling me a liar?” she demanded as she came around the prep table.


In her flat shoes, the top of her head barely came to his shoulder. That didn’t keep her from poking him in the chest.

Gid eyed the finger a moment before his gaze returned to hers. He replied, “This is a small town and I haven’t bumped into you once in the past six months. Not once. Just sayin’.”

His lips quirked, and it irritated her all the more that she still found his mouth to be so damned sexy. The man should be out of her system by now. Forgotten. But no matter how hard she tried to banish them, those memories of the two of them together held on stubbornly, pressing to the forefront at the most inconvenient times.

Including right then.

“You’re staring at my mouth,” he said.

The best defense was a good offense, Mia decided. She offered no apology. Instead, she tilted her head to one side and noted casually, “I’ve always liked your mouth. It’s one of your best features.”

“There are others you like even better as I recall.”

Heat didn’t merely shoot up her spine at his soft-spoken reply. It flooded into parts of her body that had been stone cold since their breakup.

Still, she managed to keep her tone casual. “That’s true. Sex was never an issue for us.”

He nodded. “Just commitment.”

“I’m not going to feel guilty.”

“Is that what you were feeling just now?”

His lips quirked again, telling her he didn’t buy it. She ignored the remark and pressed her point.

“I told you going in what my…my limits were—live for the moment, don’t plan for the future. I explained everything, Gid. I made it clear. And you said you were okay with it. You” —she poked his chest again for emphasis—“You were the one who changed the rules.”